Brexit negotiations must consider the rights and needs of children

Tuesday, 24th November 2017

ECPAT UK has contributed to an important new discussion paper, Making Brexit work for children, outlining concerns about the impact of Brexit on children. We are concerned about the lack of consideration about Brexit’s implications on child protection and safeguarding. To ensure children’s rights and needs are safeguarded post-Brexit, we joined with other UK children’s experts to form the ‘Brexit and Children’ coalition.

Children comprise a quarter of the UK population and are currently protected by 80 pieces of EU legislation protecting their rights and entitlements in areas including migration, asylum, child protection, health and safety, paediatric medicine, access to social and economic rights and cross-border family breakdown. However once the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill is passed, the UK will cease to operate within EU jurisdiction, creating space for the UK government to implement new legislation and public authority.

Widespread concerns have been raised regarding the use of Government delegated powers to amend laws without facing parliamentary scrutiny. In the Withdrawal Bill, these powers can be used wherever the Minister believes it is ‘appropriate’. There is a particular concern given that Brexit will remove any children’s rights safeguards currently offered by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

To ensure the impact of Brexit on children is considered at all stages of the exiting process, our research makes the following recommendations:

The Government should ensure that all existing protections for children’s rights in the EU legislative framework are protected and preserved in domestic law.

The needs of children and young people should be considered in determining the settlement status of EU nationals, and for this group to able to apply for settled status in their own right.

The Government should put a strategy in place to continue membership of EU-level data, criminal justice intelligence-sharing, training, research and security infrastructure with a view to protecting children, particularly child victims of trafficking, child victims of online abuse and children in Europe abused by British nationals who may be affected by cross-border criminal investigations.

In light of inflationary uncertainty caused by Brexit, the Government should end the current benefits freeze in place until 2020 to protect low-income families.

The Government should guarantee that the proposed Shared Prosperity Fund will continue funding projects supporting children and young people post-Brexit.

The UK should remain part of the EU family framework that regulates cross-border family law cases which offers the best protection for children’s rights.

The Government should ensure that children and young people across the UK are given the opportunity to express their views on all issues of relevance to them during the Withdrawal process.

Two leading UK charities, ECPAT UK and Missing People, have released a new report warning that trafficked and unaccompanied children are 30 times more likely to go missing than other children their age. Additionally, in 2017, trafficked and unaccompanied children went missing from care on average 7 times, highlighting grave safeguarding failures on the part of local authorities.

More than 30 child rights NGOs, including ECPAT UK, ECPAT International and eight ECPAT member groups have written to EU President Junckers expressing concern over the wording of the draft Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications (e-Privacy Regulation), currently under consideration in Brussels. The NGOs are concerned the new regulation could hamper efforts to track online child sex offenders and identify victims.

ECPAT UK is once again partnering with the Refugee Council to deliver training to over 1,000 foster carers and support workers in accommodation placements in England. The 'caring for separated and trafficked children' training programme will equip those with caring duties for unaccompanied and trafficked children with the knowledge and tools to effectively protect these vulnerable children.

On Wednesday, 17th October 2018, ECPAT UK will join partners from across Europe to participate in a ‘Day of Action’ for unaccompanied and separated children, as part of the cross-border Safeguarding Migrant Children Across Europe (AMINA) project.

Thousands of children put at risk of trafficking by the UK Government’s lack of plan to prevent it, says new report by the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group - a group of organisations including ECPAT UK.

Sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector has been an ‘open secret’ among humanitarian organisations, with individuals who report abuse continually ‘silenced and ostracised’, according to a new report by the International Development Committee which drew on evidence submitted by ECPAT UK.

Our latest research, Child trafficking in the UK 2018: A snapshot, exposes the limitations of the government’s response to child victims of trafficking and highlights the need for a new, child-centred approach.

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The Secret Gardeners aims to inform professionals about the plight of children who are forced by organised crime gangs to grow drugs in houses across the UK but who often face criminalisation and prison.

The National Referral Mechanism is a process set up by the Government to identify and support victims of trafficking in the UK. It was born out of the Government's obligation to identify victims under the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Human Trafficking, which came into force on 1 February 2008.

In 2018 we worked with Care2 to call on the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid MP, to overhaul the current system of identification and support for victims of trafficking – the National Referral Mechanism (NRM).

This year, an incredible 120,535 supporters called for specialist support for all trafficked children. However, the fight is not finished and with the Modern Slavery Act currently under review, it’s now or never to make sure your voice is heard. Will you take 5 minutes to contact your MP asking them to raise this issue with the Home Secretary?

The UK Government is failing to protect thousands of children from exploitation by lacking a plan to prevent child trafficking, according to a new report by the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group (ATMG), a coalition of twelve UK-based charities, including ECPAT UK. The report Before the Harm is Done, stresses that the UK has no specific strategy in relation to preventing trafficking in children, putting thousands of children at risk.

ECPAT UK offers a comprehensive training programme, in line with National Occupational Standards, delivering courses for more than 20 years to help improve responses to child trafficking, modern slavery and exploitation.

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Report immediate concerns about a child's welfare

If you have an immediate concern about a child's welfare, please contact your local council's social care department, who are available 24 hours a day. You can find their contact details on the Directgov website or in the phone book.

You can also contact the Modern Slavery Helpline on 0800 0121 700 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

If your concern is urgent, please call the police in your area or 999.